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French prosecutors have confirmed to Norway’s NRK that Varg Vikernes (BURZUM’s Count Grishnackh) and his pregnant wife Marie Cachet were released at 19:00 Thursday night (July 18th). Police were unable to identify specific terrorist plans or terrorist target and Vikernes would not be prosecuted for this. Prosecution to Vikernes, Julien Freyssinet, told NRK yesterday that his client will cooperate with the police, but denied that he had terrorist plans.

There will still be trial when Vikernes is accused of racism provocations by Jews and Muslims on the internet. It is not yet clear when the trial comes up, says Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, judge and spokeswoman for prosecutors in France.

It is uncertain exactly when the trial of Vikernes will be scheduled. When NRK talked to spokeswoman later Tuesday night she suggested that the matter would be scheduled towards the end of the year.Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, July 16th 2013, it was revealed that VARG VIKERNES had been arrested In France “For Allegedly Planning A ‘Massacre’“. Varg Vikernes’ former defense attorney says that there is very little legal basis for the BURZUM leader’s arrest in France on suspicion of planning “a large terrorist act.”

Vikerenes, 40, who has been living in France for the past three years, was taken into custody Tuesday morning (July 16), along with his French wife, Marie Cachet, as a preventive measure after Vikernes posted aggressive racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic comments on Internet forums. The couple’s home was searched and five guns were found, including four rifles legally purchased by Varg’s wife as a member of a rifle club.

Vikernes’ former lawyer in Norway, John Christian Elden, said the musician “has expressed extreme views on race mixing for several years, built on Norse teachings.”

According to the French news bureau AFP, Vikernes had been under police surveillance for many years, but it was only when his wife acquired weapons that police started a formal investigation.

Elden, who said that Vikernes has not contacted him since being detained by French police on Tuesday, stated that the musician’s arrest appears to have been carried out in part because Vikernes was one 530 supporters to have received the manifesto of Anders Breivik, the man responsible for the July 2011 bomb attack in central Oslo, Norway and shooting rampage in Utøya island that resulted in the deaths of 77 people. In addition, Vikernes’ blogs, which include extreme expressions of opinion, and the fact that his wife had bought weapons contributed to the police’s decision to arrest the pair. “It’s less than what Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) tend to have every time they arrest Islamists in Norway and release them a short time later,” Elden said.

“Having received the manifesto before [Breivik] committed his crimes and having been sentenced in Norway in the past for murder, this individual, who was close to a neo-Nazi movement, was likely to prepare a large terrorist act,” French Interior Minister Manuel Valls told reporters.

“The investigation will notably establish the conditions in which these [rifles] were acquired and their real objective,” Valls added.

French police can hold suspects in terrorism cases for up to 96 hours before bringing preliminary charges.

In 2011, Vikernes called for the French to vote for the National Front (FN), writing on his official web site that doing so would be the only way to avoid the scourge of mass immigration.

In the open letter, entitled “Dear France,” he said: “Your parents may induce you into a vote other than for the FN, but do not listen. They are responsible for the plight of today’s France, because they were too ignorant and too loose, or too brainwashed, to do as they should. They have already proved to the world that they have failed and betrayed France.”

Varg was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to Norway’s longest prison term of 21 years for the August 1993 murder of MAYHEM guitarist Oystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) and for burning down three churches, including the original Holmenkollen Chapel next to the Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo. He was released from prison in 2009 after serving 16 years of that sentence.

Vikernes wrote on his blog that he was “forced out of Norway by greedy lawyers” who claimed he owed their clients money.

According to RTL, Varg Vikernes (a.k.a. Count Grishnackh) — the BURZUM mastermind who served a Norwegian prison term for the August 1993 murder of MAYHEM guitarist Oystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) — was arrested this morning (Tuesday, July) 16 near the town of Salon-la-Tour, a commune in the Corrèze department in central France, on suspicion of planning a “massacre.”

Vikernes, 40, who has been living on a French farm with his wife and three children, was picked up by the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, DCRI), a French intelligence agency which reports directly to the Ministry of the Interior.

A search of Vikernes’ farm for weapons and explosives is currently underway. His wife, a French national and a member of a shooting club, recently legally purchased four rifles.

Openly racist, Varg on April 3, 2011 posted a statement in French on his web site calling for the French to vote for the National Front and describing Norway as “the last Soviet state in Europe.”

According to RTL, Vikernes was one 530 supporters to have received the manifesto of Anders Breivik, the man responsible for the July 2011 bomb attack in central Oslo, Norway and shooting rampage in Utøya island that resulted in the deaths of 77 people, many of them children. Breivik e-mailed the 1,518-page manifesto to his contacts hours before he set out on a murderous rampage.

An official at the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, which has been put in charge of the investigation, told Euronews: “[Vikernes receiving Breivik’s manifesto] was at the origin of the investigation … There were several suspicions that made the services fear he could possibly carry out a violent act.”

BURZUM – Umskiptar: The new album from Varg Vikernes will see North American release on May 22. Finding inspiration from the verses of famous Scandinavia poem “Voluspa,” Umskiptar is a return-to-roots album. Says the controversial musician: “The vocals are more important than on any previous album with a total of 66 stanzas making up the album’s lyrics.” Umskiptar expands BURZUM’s ongoing influence of Nordic folk, but for this album adds more traditional heavy metal, signature BURZUM composition, and a keener emphasis on vocal delivery – once again presented in Vikernes’ native tongue. Umskiptar (or Metamorphoses) follows the historical story that details the creation of the world and its end as dictated to Odin, a recurring character in BURZUM’s lyrics. Umskiptar follows 2011’s Fallen. Said Decibel Magazine, “pounding, primitive rhythms are lashing by fizzing, frostbitten guitar which swirls in squalls around Vikernes’ inhuman, agonizing screech; a chilling mesmerizing, unflinching mirror on a profoundly troubled soul.”

Fallen, the eighth album from BURZUM, will be released in North America on April 5. The album is the second to be released via Varg Vikernes’ imprint Byelobog Productions (via Candlelight for the territory). Fallen features seven new compositions by the controversial Norwegian musician, each adding another storied journey to the celebrated BURZUM legacy.

Vikernes says of the new album, “Musically, Fallen is a cross between Belus and something new, inspired more by the debut album and Det Som Engang Var than by Hvis Lyset Tar Oss or Filosofem. The sound is more dynamic. We mastered the album as if it was classical music and I was more experimental than I was on Belus in all respects. Lyrically it is similar to the debut album, in the way that it is more personal and focuses on existential issues. But the mythological undertone known from Belus is still there. I have also included some ambient tracks, a short introduction and a longer conclusion.”

Fallen features artwork from renowned French painter William Adolphe Bouguereau. It is a striking contrast to art Vikernes has used for his albums in the past. He comments, “the cover is part of a painting called Elegy. I used it in this context because the album deals with the concept of falling, not least in a metaphysical sense. By definition, ‘elegy’ means a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem. It is a funeral song or a lament for the dead. It is a poem written in elegiac meter or a sad or mournful musical composition.”

Many credit BURZUM with influencing much of modern-day black metal. While his music has traveled roads often far removed from what many consider black metal to be (with parts ambient, electronic, and more), his compositions have immediately been taken to heart by countless legions of fans the world over. It is a “no fear” mentality that has made Varg Vikernes both an idol and a bastard.

Said Metal Army of 2010’s Belus, “Whatever you might think of Varg Vikernes, it’s impossible to deny the depressive brilliance of Belus, which recalls his classic albums Filosofem and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss yet shows a marked increase of maturity.” Fallen is the second album from the controversial recording artist since his release from the chains that bound him for nearly two decades. It is the first album from the musician to benefit from a proper North American release.

BURZUM was founded in 1991 by Vikernes. Under the pen name Count Grishnackh, the youthful musician quickly recorded four albums. During his lengthy incarceration, Vikernes recorded two additional albums, thus completing his initial series of compositions. Released from captivity in 2009, Vikernes immediately set out on a new path of creativity and quickly recorded/released Belus on his own label imprint, Byelobog Productions. Both CD and vinyl pressings of Belus quickly sold out with repressings of the album not coming quick enough to keep up with demand. Decibel Magazine featured a candid cover story with the musician while Guitar World and other key stateside magazines lined up for interview opportunities. He graced the cover of England’s Terrorizer and several other key international magazines.

This in depth interview makes comparisons between three generations of influential metal guitarist – KK Downing from the 60’s, Kuusniemi from the 70’s and Vikernes from the 80’s… and asks – amongst other things – about their music making methods, guitar preferences and the essence of metal. The article has some brilliant and interesting revelations!

Guitargument: The Three Guitarists interview by Devamitra Volksfaust:

“Thousands of years have seen generations of bards and minstrels shape wood, caress strings with their fingers and pick ever more complex and varied tunes for the entertainment of kings and peasants, for joy and for grief. It’s been roughly 80 years since the magnetic pick-up was invented and soon was to be connected to electric amplifiers, to make guitar the unique conducting rod between the musical forces of the past and the future. Everything from pacts with the devil to manifests against social oppression have been channeled through the thundering vibrations of the “axe”. There would be no rock music as we know without it, much less heavy metal or punk. Whichever your preferred strain may be, it’s fair to assume that a reader of this site is more or less particular, if not religious, about commanding guitar riffs and intense guitar solos.

So it was high time to arrange some serious discussion about this guitar business. Heavy metal heroes come and go and each new issue of the bigger guitar magazines demonstrates a hyped-up melo-death geek or self-possessed power metal “how many notes per second” twat bragging about expensive equipment and superficial guitar tech trivia. But as can be expected, they rarely get down to the essence of things, which is how to cut the crap and make the magic happen. The surge of infernal energy right through your brain when the guitar-driven band pulls out all the stops and reaches for the night skies: the metal moments.

K.K. Downing formed his first heavy rock band with his pal Ian Hill in 1969, at 18 years old. As a member of JUDAS PRIEST he has toured Europe, America and Asia countless times, performed on 17 albums, profoundly influenced heavy metal and speed metal in sound and presence while blowing our brains out with instantly memorable riffs and some of the most famous and widely imitated solo work in heavy metal.

Kimmo Kuusniemi, a son of little northern country called Finland where no-one had heard the words “heavy metal” before, formed his egyptomaniacal entity SARCOFAGUS in 1977, shooting both figurative and literal fire from his guitar in magisterial stage shows far ahead of the times. He released three classics of Finnish occult and progressive metal filled with his unique amplified guitar histrionics before moving on to other media , while he has continued to preach the sermon of true metal to unbelievers and act as the benevolent godfather of the Finnish metal scene.

Varg Vikernes seems more like a myth than a real person, the antagonistic metal magician of Norway, the progenitor of BURZUM, who first picked up the guitar in 1987 and barely five years later, unleashed a multidimensional wave of darkness upon the world – one that we would come to know as black metal. Hypnotic, ethereal and frightening, the runic spells of Varg’s possession never stayed the same, formulating seven albums full of the mysteries of the forest and the past, weakly imitated countless times since not only in metal, but in post rock, industrial and indie drone as well.”

In his very first interview with Metal-Rules.com, Varg Vikernes speaks to us about his new Burzum album BELUS. As well, since Varg has always been outspoken with his political and societal views, we ask him about the changes he’s seen in the world over the years he’s been incarcerated. Whether you are a fan or not, his place in Black Metal history is undeniable as his role in the formation of the genre cannot be overstated. So without further adieu, we present Varg Vikernes.